1 00:00:00,810 --> 00:00:04,110 Good evening. My name's Walter. I'm from the Middle East Centre. 2 00:00:04,380 --> 00:00:09,060 You haven't seen me here previously this term because I went to the Vatican when I came out of sabbatical for. 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,320 And it's my pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker, Ibrahim Al Rasheed. 4 00:00:14,890 --> 00:00:20,890 It's not the first time I've introduced him. He comes here fairly frequently and he was our own student. 5 00:00:21,460 --> 00:00:30,910 He graduated in 2004 in the history department and is now an associate professor of history at California State University, San Marcos. 6 00:00:31,510 --> 00:00:39,970 He's a historian of 20th century Iraq. His dissertation was on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War. 7 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:43,270 As you have seen from the centre Web site, 8 00:00:43,700 --> 00:00:50,860 Ibrahim's work was plagiarised by the British government when he was trying to fabricate a rationale for joining the U.S. 9 00:00:51,910 --> 00:01:00,070 Invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was informally known, or maybe it's official now known as the dodgy dossier case. 10 00:01:00,820 --> 00:01:06,970 Ibrahim is the co-author of a number of works, including Iraq's Armed Forces An Analytical History, 11 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:12,010 published in 2008, The Modern History of Iraq in 2017, 12 00:01:12,820 --> 00:01:14,889 and a Concise History of the Modern, 13 00:01:14,890 --> 00:01:24,760 released in 2018 by Routledge and is currently researching the effects of climate change on Iraq and before the pandemic. 14 00:01:24,970 --> 00:01:27,670 He had developed an interest in pandemics, 15 00:01:27,670 --> 00:01:37,899 and so so he went through an intense period of teaching 15 different variations of classes on pandemics during pandemic. 16 00:01:37,900 --> 00:01:43,479 But he just told me that now the pandemic is over and people started investing interests in that topic. 17 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:54,400 But this is still a fascinating topic. Well, this lecture, the title of tonight's lecture is The Transformation of Iraq since the 2003 Invasion. 18 00:01:54,790 --> 00:02:02,170 From the dodgy dossier to human security, gender and the nation's future in the face of climate change. 19 00:02:02,350 --> 00:02:08,170 As usual, Ibrahim will speak for 4550 minutes, and then we'll have time for questions afterwards. 20 00:02:08,890 --> 00:02:12,520 So please join me in giving a warm welcome to Ibrahim Rashid. 21 00:02:17,970 --> 00:02:22,560 Very good. First of all, I wanted to thank you. I realise this is the last day of term. 22 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:26,700 Fortunately, the weather improved, so I'm grateful for that. 23 00:02:27,030 --> 00:02:30,209 As Walter introduced me. Yes, I did. 24 00:02:30,210 --> 00:02:33,300 My people here. I graduated in 2004. 25 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:37,290 At that time I was writing a thesis on the 1991 Gulf War. 26 00:02:37,290 --> 00:02:46,019 When it was finished, it was perhaps the most recent thesis in the modern history department at Oxford 27 00:02:46,020 --> 00:02:51,080 at the time of Tell Me your particular episode of one chapter of that thesis. 28 00:02:51,090 --> 00:02:55,440 But after the publication of the thesis, I also had the pleasure of coming back here. 29 00:02:55,440 --> 00:03:06,960 In 2004, Walter introduced me for another subject that I was researching, and that was the beginning of the use of beheadings as a tool of terrorism. 30 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,980 By then, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at that time, 31 00:03:11,010 --> 00:03:17,430 somebody affiliated with the organisation known as al Qaeda in Iraq that would eventually evolve into ISIS. 32 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:23,940 So there is a thread that unites what seems disparate subjects. 33 00:03:23,940 --> 00:03:34,620 And first of all, I have tried to at the end of this seminar series is, first of all, how the history of Iraq for the last ten years has been written. 34 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:37,820 What were the major episodes? What were the major milestones? 35 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:48,180 This is what I wanted to go over, and when I first pitched the subject back in September, the entire lecture series came out of that. 36 00:03:48,180 --> 00:03:55,110 Looking at Iraq over the last 20 years, I asked to be the final speaker because I not only want to refer to some of the previous speakers, 37 00:03:55,740 --> 00:04:05,370 but reflect on the last 20 years and then by bringing in climate change, also look at the most salient subject going into the next 20 years. 38 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:10,170 So what I'm going to first of all, 39 00:04:10,500 --> 00:04:18,510 basically look at is the one overarching theme is the ramification of the consequences of the collapse 40 00:04:18,510 --> 00:04:24,510 of the security sector in 2003 with the argument that is the effects are still being felt today, 41 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:34,080 particularly the record of governance since 2003 intersects with instability and will only be exacerbated in the future with climate change. 42 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:40,110 So what I'm going to do is then look at the nexus with the collapse of the security sector and climate change. 43 00:04:40,260 --> 00:04:48,420 What does that bode in terms of Iraq's future? It's more or less this and first, some of those are quite young. 44 00:04:48,990 --> 00:04:52,709 What am I going to try to introduce you to for you might be the children during 45 00:04:52,710 --> 00:04:57,780 the Iraq war was a time when the survival of the Iraqi state was in doubt. 46 00:04:58,980 --> 00:05:02,520 So what I want to conclude with is, first of all, how has Iraq survive? 47 00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:09,870 How has the state evolved despite the odds? So as I said, I'll be looking at more or less over the last 20 years, 48 00:05:09,870 --> 00:05:17,100 four things the collapse of the security sector and the consequent rise of violent non-state actors in Iraq. 49 00:05:18,270 --> 00:05:27,000 Then kind of look at going from the domestic to a brief overview of the regional context as we are in the present from the last 20 years. 50 00:05:27,060 --> 00:05:30,090 How is the region more or less been affected by the Iraq war? 51 00:05:30,780 --> 00:05:37,739 And then look, go back to Iraq, reflect on the loss of Iraq's ethno sectarian heterogeneity, 52 00:05:37,740 --> 00:05:41,790 and then finally look at the future of Iraq and climate change. 53 00:05:42,750 --> 00:05:52,290 So in other words, the thesis I suppose I wrote really fell into history, but it had ramifications in the literature of national security. 54 00:05:52,290 --> 00:05:58,860 When I was doing my thesis in Oxford, I was also working with an NGO called Child Soldiers International, 55 00:05:59,370 --> 00:06:02,940 and that was more or less working in the field of human security. 56 00:06:03,510 --> 00:06:08,309 I was attending a lecture recently on women in the Gulf and a colleague of mine, 57 00:06:08,310 --> 00:06:15,510 somebody I've worked for for a long time, they ran the regime who opened the opened the Iraq Foundation in the US. 58 00:06:15,540 --> 00:06:20,909 During that lecture, she lamented the kind of, let's say, 59 00:06:20,910 --> 00:06:26,640 the inability of the field of national security to talk to other fields in which we use the word security. 60 00:06:27,270 --> 00:06:34,020 We use terms such as energy security. And usually energy security and national security are kind of sort of on a continuum. 61 00:06:34,020 --> 00:06:40,770 But her regret was that the field of human security that looks at the kind of the most vulnerable populations in conflict, 62 00:06:40,770 --> 00:06:44,520 right, is usually their scholars are working in their own field. 63 00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:50,160 And then, you know, food security is a term we use water security, finally, climate security. 64 00:06:50,460 --> 00:06:58,020 I'm going to try to kind of create a common link through all these fields by particularly looking at the collapse of the security sector. 65 00:06:59,250 --> 00:07:04,110 So first, let's take you back in time. It's February 2003. 66 00:07:04,470 --> 00:07:13,680 And why has the famed Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho, is writing a thank you letter to Bush, where he refers to not only cold. 67 00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:18,870 Powell, but making it necessary for Tony Blair to go to the British parliament with a 68 00:07:18,870 --> 00:07:23,990 fabricated dossier written by a student That's me ten years ago and present. 69 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,240 This is damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service. 70 00:07:27,870 --> 00:07:35,190 So when Colin Powell had past, this was perhaps his darkest blemish on his diplomatic and military career. 71 00:07:36,060 --> 00:07:42,209 That presentation in February 2003, where he was approaching the UN General Assembly. 72 00:07:42,210 --> 00:07:52,680 But really it was this kind of a venue to advocate for a U.N. Security Council resolution to further justify military action against Iraq. 73 00:07:52,710 --> 00:07:58,500 Let's go back in 2003 and look at the following video to remind us of what happened that. 74 00:08:00,330 --> 00:08:07,770 Just to remind you, it's February 2008, heralded by the government's carefully coordinated propaganda offensive, 75 00:08:07,770 --> 00:08:11,820 took an embarrassing hit tonight after Downing Street was accused of plagiarism. 76 00:08:12,210 --> 00:08:15,060 The target is the intelligence dossier released on Monday, 77 00:08:15,090 --> 00:08:19,770 heralded by none other than US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations yesterday. 78 00:08:20,100 --> 00:08:26,190 Channel four News has learned the bulk of this 19 page document was copied from three different articles, 79 00:08:26,430 --> 00:08:31,450 one written by a graduate student and Specialist Judith Rush as the details. 80 00:08:32,550 --> 00:08:37,890 I was writing on Monday, the day before the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, 81 00:08:37,890 --> 00:08:41,850 addressed the UN and Downing Street published its latest paper on Iraq. 82 00:08:42,390 --> 00:08:46,170 It gives the impression of being an up to the minute intelligence based analysis. 83 00:08:46,620 --> 00:08:48,660 Mr. Powell was fulsome in his praise. 84 00:08:50,130 --> 00:08:57,510 I would call my colleagues attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes an exquisite, 85 00:08:57,510 --> 00:09:08,400 detailed Iraqi deception activities published on the Number ten website and called Iraq its infrastructure, concealment, Deception and intimidation. 86 00:09:08,790 --> 00:09:14,820 It outlines the structure of surveillance intelligence organisations. It makes familiar, really, to a Cambridge academic. 87 00:09:16,910 --> 00:09:25,040 Is that new school for the context. So I searched around the other articles that I have read on higher ups and organisations. 88 00:09:25,890 --> 00:09:33,400 Country. I realise that large sections of the Turkish government stuffs the Russian copy copied from here. 89 00:09:33,550 --> 00:09:37,750 An article last September, a small journal of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. 90 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:43,540 Its author, Ibrahim Al Rasheed, a postgraduate Students from Monterey of California. 91 00:09:44,110 --> 00:09:49,959 The document the Russian government does here is 19 pages of most of 2660, according to RFQ. 92 00:09:49,960 --> 00:10:04,060 From the left or right. Even if the logical address and touch of this, for example, six paragraphs long on Saddam's special security organisation, 93 00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:10,750 the exact same words in the California student's paper of military intelligence of Iraqi writes The head of 94 00:10:10,750 --> 00:10:15,610 military intelligence generally did not have to be a relative of Saddam's immediate family or a Tikriti. 95 00:10:16,060 --> 00:10:19,540 Saddam appointed Soviet Abdul-Aziz al-Douri as head. 96 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:24,730 Notice the comma after appointed Downing Street paraphrases the first sentence, 97 00:10:24,730 --> 00:10:28,960 but the second is cut and pasted, complete with the same grammatical error. 98 00:10:29,770 --> 00:10:33,340 Academic plagiarism. Seriously Intellectual theft. 99 00:10:33,850 --> 00:10:37,930 Downing Street didn't ask for permission to reproduce the work, which is not current, 100 00:10:38,110 --> 00:10:43,390 but actually an historical analysis of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait before the last Gulf War. 101 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:51,100 He's writing his Ph.D. thesis on the operation of Iraqi forces in the way, and he's a primary source of information. 102 00:10:51,370 --> 00:10:54,550 These documents captured from the Iraqi government in 1991. 103 00:10:55,030 --> 00:11:00,280 The information before that he's using is 12 years old, and he acknowledges this in his article. 104 00:11:00,640 --> 00:11:09,550 The British government may that information and does not know which services present his current information about Iraq's current security services. 105 00:11:09,970 --> 00:11:17,680 When reading the information, since using some 12 year old Downing Street copy from two other articles for the magazine, 106 00:11:17,680 --> 00:11:23,390 Jane's Intelligence Review editor is happy to be quoted less happy in a selective way. 107 00:11:23,410 --> 00:11:33,760 Some parts were edited. What you want me to look at is exactly how it's being compiled and collated, and the questions that you were asking about. 108 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:36,310 Has certain things been selected for spin? 109 00:11:36,670 --> 00:11:43,120 There's a right question done in several places at Downing Street, and it's the originals to make more sinister reading. 110 00:11:43,660 --> 00:11:48,490 Number ten says that the intelligence agency is spying on foreign embassies in Iran. 111 00:11:48,850 --> 00:11:53,620 The original read monitoring of foreign embassies in Iraq and the provocative role of 112 00:11:53,620 --> 00:11:58,060 supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes is weaker than the originals, 113 00:11:58,330 --> 00:12:06,850 aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes. And the original phrase describing a group made up of all in the country bumpkins is in 114 00:12:06,850 --> 00:12:12,700 content version just bullies editing to make Saddam's apparatus look more terrifying, 115 00:12:13,030 --> 00:12:17,500 raising questions about the way number ten is spinning the justification for war. 116 00:12:18,460 --> 00:12:22,900 Julian Rush Well, I called Downing Street for reaction. The minister was available and you're kidding me. 117 00:12:23,230 --> 00:12:27,580 Actually, the Tory opposition didn't want to talk about Later, Downing Street offered this statement. 118 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:32,500 Our report was put together by a range of government officials. But what makes this clear? 119 00:12:32,860 --> 00:12:36,340 The contents were drawn from a number of sources, including intelligence material. 120 00:12:36,820 --> 00:12:43,660 First paragraph erm part out of the report does not identify or credit any sources, nor does it claim exclusivity on its contents. 121 00:12:43,990 --> 00:12:51,520 We consider the text as published accurate. The Downing Street spokesman will not be drawn on whether this included typos and spelling mistakes. 122 00:12:52,270 --> 00:12:56,040 Okay, so what are you looking at? 123 00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:01,480 And people always ask me, what was your immediate reaction to be plagiarised by the British government? 124 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:10,240 It wasn't that it highlighted my poor use of commas. My most immediate reaction when it kind of infuriated me was with the copy of my chart, 125 00:13:11,050 --> 00:13:18,790 this very complicated chart that I compiled that more or less put together the complicated, 126 00:13:18,790 --> 00:13:23,490 convoluted and confusing nature of the security sector under Saddam Hussein. 127 00:13:23,500 --> 00:13:24,430 So just for reference, 128 00:13:24,430 --> 00:13:32,020 the security sector refers to those forces beyond the conventional military that are usually charged with maintaining domestic security. 129 00:13:32,470 --> 00:13:40,090 In some states, they might be paramilitary forces. Now, the important is not just the confusion, 130 00:13:40,090 --> 00:13:51,580 but the numbers that I highlighted in terms of how many individuals were mobilised and each one of these organisations collectively, 131 00:13:52,430 --> 00:14:00,280 it was about a lower estimate, about 80,000 figures in the Iraqi security sector, maybe as high as 100,000. 132 00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:03,680 Okay. Why are those numbers important? 133 00:14:04,700 --> 00:14:15,139 Because, number one, let's look at the reference to the 10 to 15000 country bumpkins in the news report on those quote unquote, 134 00:14:15,140 --> 00:14:23,030 country bumpkins were referred to in a military unit known as the Fedayeen Saddam controlled by Saddam Hussein. 135 00:14:24,380 --> 00:14:30,590 When that news report came out, there was kind of a hidden message in my research book. 136 00:14:30,950 --> 00:14:36,830 And it's this, what these 100,000 individuals, those country bumpkins, 137 00:14:37,250 --> 00:14:41,420 says a lot of work in those country bumpkins primarily come from they came from Tikrit. 138 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:46,710 You see these this network projected fear on Iraqi society. 139 00:14:46,730 --> 00:14:53,600 It was also a job provider for the various segments of Iraqi society that were the key to regime security. 140 00:14:54,710 --> 00:15:04,310 So this became a question that I was the main point of my article was this What happens if the security sector is demobilised? 141 00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:10,760 If it's managed properly, it might avoid this scenario. 142 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:16,010 And this was my fear. If this is a network is demobilised overnight. 143 00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:24,980 What does that mean? You have 100,000 men proficient in the use of arms with no future and stake in the new Iraqi government. 144 00:15:25,340 --> 00:15:28,129 So when I say how is this related to human security, 145 00:15:28,130 --> 00:15:35,660 I'm not talking about in terms of human security in regards to these individuals who committed some horrific crimes and human security needs. 146 00:15:35,990 --> 00:15:40,790 What threat does the demobilised security sector mean for the Iraqi population? 147 00:15:41,300 --> 00:15:47,000 And my argument is the Iraqi population endured that threat for the last 20 years, more or less. 148 00:15:47,930 --> 00:15:57,860 You see, when this document with plagiarise in February 2003, I let's look at February 2023, the date this was plagiarised. 149 00:15:57,860 --> 00:16:00,980 And I saw a lot of symbolism what happened within the span of a week. 150 00:16:02,060 --> 00:16:06,049 Number one, a prominent Iraqi environmentalist, Jassim al-Asad. 151 00:16:06,050 --> 00:16:09,590 He was kidnapped on a major road on the way to about that. 152 00:16:11,300 --> 00:16:18,110 The same week, a prominent Iraqi YouTuber named Tebow Laleh, who had just come back to visit Iraq, 153 00:16:18,710 --> 00:16:21,200 was kidnapped by her father and killed in an honour killing. 154 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:29,149 So in other words, the symbolism of the timing is this 20 years later, this back to back events happening in the same week, 155 00:16:29,150 --> 00:16:38,480 20 years after the plagiarism forced me to ponder a question if security sector reform had been managed properly. 156 00:16:38,750 --> 00:16:46,340 And this is one of the great counterfactuals with events like these, just these two that I picked still be occurring 20 years from now. 157 00:16:48,650 --> 00:16:55,430 Because you see the answer to my fears. Okay, we're realised on May 23rd in a single order. 158 00:16:55,430 --> 00:17:02,750 And I think this was the most consequential decision made in Iraq's past and the ramifications which are still being felt 20 years later. 159 00:17:05,090 --> 00:17:12,649 What happened after I was plagiarised, I did have to go to the British Parliament, to the Parliament and testify. 160 00:17:12,650 --> 00:17:20,690 And one of the many inquiries that lasted for almost close to a decade in terms of understanding the case to go to war against Iraq. 161 00:17:24,770 --> 00:17:32,540 My greatest regret was during those testimonies was to say the wrong lesson was taken from the plagiarism. 162 00:17:32,540 --> 00:17:40,340 It wasn't copying the information, but asking this question What would the ramifications be of security sector reform that wasn't managed properly? 163 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:49,450 What happened was not only the complete disbandment of a lot of organisations, you saw my chart, that's what I underline. 164 00:17:49,580 --> 00:17:55,670 Okay. What was unpardonable was the complete demobilisation of the Iraqi military. 165 00:17:55,700 --> 00:18:04,640 Remember, my concern was what would happen with 100,000 individuals being demobilised and what threat would they pose to Iraqi society. 166 00:18:05,110 --> 00:18:11,330 Remember, the Iraqi army, more or less its size at one time was about 1 million men under arms. 167 00:18:12,830 --> 00:18:19,159 So that, I think becomes one of the most important issues is not only the collapse of the security sector, 168 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:26,690 but the Iraqi military itself being demobilised, where the U.S. military then found itself in a role where it had to serve the 169 00:18:26,690 --> 00:18:30,440 function of the Iraqi military without the sufficient numbers to do that. 170 00:18:31,100 --> 00:18:36,090 And so what am I going to be presenting then, from this point on onwards, are the consequences of this decision. 171 00:18:36,110 --> 00:18:43,640 This is my argument. This was one of the most consequential decisions made in Iraqi history in the last 20 years, 172 00:18:45,410 --> 00:18:52,250 because not only did you deprive Iraq of some kind of mechanism or the institutions to maintain security, 173 00:18:53,360 --> 00:19:03,020 but this demobilisation also basically gave the fuel in terms of the training, the grievances for the Iraqi insurgency. 174 00:19:03,710 --> 00:19:10,370 This is relevant now. Let's look and choose consequences of this decision. 175 00:19:11,550 --> 00:19:16,200 You see all of these agencies projected fear into Iraqi society. 176 00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:23,740 But for the most part, if you look at this network, even though it was complicated, it was collectively referred to as the macabre. 177 00:19:25,290 --> 00:19:33,000 And like I said, if these individuals were not somehow rehabilitated or reintegrated, some were criminals and should be tried. 178 00:19:34,260 --> 00:19:40,170 So to sum up now, one of the first speakers you had was Ali Allawi, who began his lecture series about without a stake. 179 00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:47,060 So if you want to go back in 2003, what were Ali Allawi and who was also he was a fellow, I think, for me. 180 00:19:47,070 --> 00:19:51,300 So I was working with him in 2003. What was our biggest concern? 181 00:19:51,330 --> 00:19:53,520 So I was looking at this from the security element. 182 00:19:53,520 --> 00:20:02,040 Ali Allawi was wondering what kind of process would Iraq have that would be somewhat akin to the Truth and Reconciliation committee in South Africa? 183 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:04,200 This was his big concern. 184 00:20:04,230 --> 00:20:12,510 Now, of course, he was cognisant of the difficulties of applying a South African model to a society like Iraq, where, you know, 185 00:20:12,510 --> 00:20:18,959 the South African model had these televised confessions, if you will, and then forgiveness from the perpetrators televised. 186 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,150 And this life session, he knew that would be difficult. 187 00:20:21,150 --> 00:20:26,370 But still, he argued that there were lessons that should have been applied to this particular case. 188 00:20:27,060 --> 00:20:30,150 This was a particular, of course, concern that we have now. 189 00:20:30,900 --> 00:20:34,900 At the end of the day, what happened? It's quite interesting. 190 00:20:34,950 --> 00:20:42,780 2003, this is what you have, one of the first collapses of the mass mobilisation armies in Middle Eastern history. 191 00:20:43,530 --> 00:20:47,069 Like I said, it's almost kind of foreshadowing different circumstances. 192 00:20:47,070 --> 00:20:51,270 But 2003, one of the largest Arab armies in the Middle East now no longer exists. 193 00:20:52,380 --> 00:20:57,360 It almost foreshadows or kind of the precursor to the collapse of the Syrian military. 194 00:20:57,390 --> 00:21:00,510 That was ranking number two, collapse of the Libyan army. 195 00:21:00,540 --> 00:21:03,330 I mean, leaving if we're talking about kind of Arab militaries right now, 196 00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:07,980 if you talk about one of the largest but still relatively intact, it's the Egyptian military. 197 00:21:08,730 --> 00:21:13,380 So on one level, 2003 represented the end of the mass mobilisation army. 198 00:21:13,860 --> 00:21:21,630 Again, we still have to acknowledge this was a military that not only engaged in two wars with the U.S., 199 00:21:21,990 --> 00:21:26,370 it was also a military force that used its arsenal and weapons, 200 00:21:26,370 --> 00:21:33,450 not the regular military, but primarily the Republican Guard against Iraq's population during the uprising in 1991. 201 00:21:33,870 --> 00:21:39,779 And again, I see a lot of a kind of foreshadowing of how the Syrian military, its equivalent of the Republican Guards, 202 00:21:39,780 --> 00:21:45,540 would do that against its own civilian population or the elite praetorian units of Gadhafi's military. 203 00:21:46,020 --> 00:21:53,489 So kind of the history of security sectors, what was happening in Iraq, even though it was reduced by the American invasion and its collapse. 204 00:21:53,490 --> 00:21:57,150 But there were trends that would be forced out of in the Middle East in the future. 205 00:21:58,530 --> 00:22:04,859 But nonetheless, so that fateful decision and sacrificed thousands of Iraqi men in the security services, 206 00:22:04,860 --> 00:22:10,679 as well as the army proficient in the use of arms to foment an insurgency or augment the ranks of 207 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:17,520 jihadist extremist networks that would later go on to foment in the Iraqi civil war from 2006 to 2008. 208 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,150 So if we really deal with that episode and then take us up to the present. 209 00:22:22,140 --> 00:22:27,480 Now, Iraq's security sector, as I documented in my work, was brutal under Saddam Hussein. 210 00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:33,840 But violence such as kidnapping or gender based violence was primarily inflicted by the state. 211 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,940 In other words, if you were kidnapped, it was most likely the Mukhabarat. 212 00:22:37,950 --> 00:22:43,079 Even gender based violence was committed by these forces. 213 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:47,310 The Fedayeen Saddam once had a notorious campaign of going through the streets of Baghdad 214 00:22:47,490 --> 00:22:51,660 and beheading alleged prostitutes and leaving their decapitated heads on the door. 215 00:22:51,990 --> 00:22:55,470 That was gender based violence right after. 216 00:22:55,590 --> 00:23:00,930 So, in other words, but the site was this the state was the site of violence primarily in Iraqi society. 217 00:23:00,930 --> 00:23:10,140 After 2003, Iraqis endured violence from a myriad of sources, not only from the foreign occupying sources. 218 00:23:10,500 --> 00:23:16,020 So we have to remember that occupying U.S. military forces was a source of violence to Iraqi society, 219 00:23:16,020 --> 00:23:19,709 whether it was a poor family going through a stop sign or incidents of American 220 00:23:19,710 --> 00:23:24,750 soldiers entering an Iraqi home and raping a young girl and killing the entire family. 221 00:23:24,810 --> 00:23:29,820 So it's the foreign occupying sources who become a source of violence. But those forces would leave. 222 00:23:30,420 --> 00:23:35,730 But that leaves us with the collapse of the Iraqi security sector, Iraqi criminal gangs, militias, 223 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:44,430 tribes and even one's own family members could get away with crimes such as honour killings without facing any repercussions. 224 00:23:45,270 --> 00:23:50,610 Something unheard of that somebody committed an honour killing without getting punished or coming under the jail, 225 00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,470 you know, being tried by the Mukhabarat institutions under Saddam. 226 00:23:56,690 --> 00:24:01,249 All of which emerge as a result of the invasion to boot the post-Saddam security sector. 227 00:24:01,250 --> 00:24:07,640 Both Kurdish and Arab security forces, are not as effective as their predecessors, despite U.S. training. 228 00:24:08,390 --> 00:24:14,450 Yet they also project violence into Iraqi society, targeting civil society activists and protesters. 229 00:24:15,020 --> 00:24:21,160 Okay, so that's my overview of the ramifications of the collapse of the security sector. 230 00:24:21,210 --> 00:24:32,660 Now, we'll look at just some digital primary sources around the time of the emergence of this particular figure that it seemed like the new Iraq is, 231 00:24:32,660 --> 00:24:39,710 of course, the new security forces and the U.S. military did simply could not catch Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. 232 00:24:40,070 --> 00:24:45,469 And if you see these are actually Iraqi images of basically wondering how could 233 00:24:45,470 --> 00:24:52,370 the most advanced U.S. military not capture this person who from 2004 to 2006, 234 00:24:52,850 --> 00:24:59,839 he more or less established a network in Iraq that would be the precursor that would eventually evolve into the Islamic State of Iraq, 235 00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:04,310 an affiliate about how you end up and eventually evolve into ISIS itself. 236 00:25:06,410 --> 00:25:11,720 Zarqawi was eventually killed in 2006 in about by an American airstrike, 237 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:23,600 but his final legacy would be unleashing a civil war in Iraq as the result of the destruction of the shrine in Samarra. 238 00:25:23,930 --> 00:25:31,460 Okay. And this episode from 2006 to 2008, that's civil war. 239 00:25:32,690 --> 00:25:34,069 It's significant. 240 00:25:34,070 --> 00:25:46,720 And I'll tell you also, I know Iraqis who might have not, let's say, personally been affected by the 2003 war, never mind the 1991 war. 241 00:25:46,730 --> 00:25:52,310 In other words, they left. None of their relatives were killed. I know Iraqis who've endured the sanctions. 242 00:25:53,270 --> 00:26:00,110 What I found quite fascinating was that almost every Iraqi I knew that was remaining in Iraq 243 00:26:00,110 --> 00:26:06,620 after 2003 somehow was affected by that sectarian civil war that almost every Iraqi family, 244 00:26:06,620 --> 00:26:11,330 whether it's Arabs in New York City, oppressed and so on and so forth, lost somebody in this conflict, 245 00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:19,490 an intense round of bloodletting for two years, including right now as a result of this action. 246 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,860 So that's the sectarian civil war. 247 00:26:25,890 --> 00:26:30,510 Now, I this lecture is also kind of a collection of the primary sources I've been 248 00:26:30,510 --> 00:26:34,320 collecting over the last 20 years are pictures I've taken during my journey. 249 00:26:34,410 --> 00:26:40,440 This was a picture I took in 2001 with June 2004. 250 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,040 And I want you to focus on this figure here, Moqtada Sadr. 251 00:26:45,300 --> 00:26:52,650 And just kind of notice almost, he's surrounded by a trinity, by these images of various Shia imams. 252 00:26:54,060 --> 00:26:59,639 Here we have them as well as Moqtada Sadr. The background is not Iraq, if I'm not mistaken. 253 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:01,980 This is Devil's Arch, which I think is in Utah. 254 00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:08,550 I don't think that I think I'm going to take a vacation to the U.S. But what is this bigger significance? 255 00:27:09,510 --> 00:27:14,250 So let's look at the evolution. Who was this figure in 2003 and 2004? 256 00:27:14,970 --> 00:27:23,760 Number one, what did he represent? First of all, this survivor of a prominent cleric, Mohammed Saadat, etc., who was killed. 257 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,450 Like I said, if Iraqis are killed, it's primarily by the Mahabharat. 258 00:27:27,570 --> 00:27:32,520 His father was killed by the Mukhabarat. He's the last remaining member of the family. 259 00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,120 But he also represented a Shia network that remained in Iraq, 260 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:45,030 unlike a good number of various clerics who were exiled in 2003 2004, that U.S. forces tried to arrest them. 261 00:27:46,950 --> 00:27:54,030 From that point on was what begins is I talked about an insurgency with elements related to Abu Musab al Zarqawi. 262 00:27:54,420 --> 00:28:00,930 The Sadrists were another element of the insurgency that U.S. forces weren't able to defeat or dismantle. 263 00:28:01,590 --> 00:28:06,510 Now, to bring these two events together, here I am in Samarra in 2010. 264 00:28:07,590 --> 00:28:15,209 The civil war had begun to abate. But a lot of the sectarian killing, at least from the Shia side, 265 00:28:15,210 --> 00:28:22,830 we know who was doing it from the primarily Arab Sunni side or the Arab tribal side or factions within the Sadrists, 266 00:28:22,830 --> 00:28:28,500 that even Sadr himself lost control of a good number of the original Shia militias. 267 00:28:28,530 --> 00:28:31,740 Did it emerge after the invasion of ISIS? 268 00:28:32,070 --> 00:28:35,940 There are more or less breakaway groups that were encouraged to breakaway by Iran, 269 00:28:36,780 --> 00:28:44,099 basically with the Sadrists militia, with a single faction that broke away from Sadr, again at the behest of Iran. 270 00:28:44,100 --> 00:28:49,740 And I think Iran in this, they have at that moment have a vision that that would be akin to Iran's Hezbollah in Iraq. 271 00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,880 And in fact, they took the name of Iraq's Hezbollah. 272 00:28:54,270 --> 00:29:02,670 But then what happened was probably it was that faction because centre was always even though he was, 273 00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,329 you know, a Shia cleric, he always had this message back, 274 00:29:06,330 --> 00:29:10,350 even in 2004 that Iraq, the Arab Sunnis and Shia should find a modus vivendi, 275 00:29:10,350 --> 00:29:14,520 that they should unite and cooperate in expelling the American occupation. 276 00:29:14,970 --> 00:29:24,330 That action not only probably was responsible for a lot of the sectarian killing, but then further splits occurred within that organisation. 277 00:29:24,330 --> 00:29:30,450 So I made a mistake. The first breakaway was a group called Assad Army cut from that organisation. 278 00:29:30,570 --> 00:29:34,139 Another group called Kataib Hezbollah broke away from Kataib Hezbollah. 279 00:29:34,140 --> 00:29:40,590 Another organisation broke away. That unified, cohesive Hezbollah never emerged in Iran. 280 00:29:40,710 --> 00:29:49,290 Notwithstanding how many times I've heard that Iran has put the Hezbollah model in Iraq, though that description doesn't hold much water. 281 00:29:49,290 --> 00:29:53,430 But let's never look at the consequences. 282 00:29:54,630 --> 00:29:59,150 Like I said, what has been lost is a kind of heterogeneity in Iraq. 283 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,790 This is one of the examples, one of the legacies of the Iraqi civil war and. 284 00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:14,030 It was the that the city that was mixed is now more or less where you can have members of any community living less than a single street. 285 00:30:14,050 --> 00:30:21,790 What we see this is back in 2010 when I visited Iraq, where you had almost something akin to know, 286 00:30:21,790 --> 00:30:25,750 you know, homogenous, monolithic, ethno sectarian neighbourhoods. 287 00:30:29,450 --> 00:30:36,769 The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a wonderful underground interface called a web of terror, 288 00:30:36,770 --> 00:30:43,910 where if you ever want to go and look at kind of every single terrorist attack committed since World War Two, it's more or less mapped here. 289 00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:48,680 What is the legacy of this organisation? That it was kind of a branch of al Qaeda. 290 00:30:49,130 --> 00:30:55,490 Again, one of the laments was almost genocide of Iraq's Yazidi population. 291 00:30:55,970 --> 00:31:06,590 And I just to show you kind of just images of the kind of Iraq's mosaic that was suffered as a result of ISIS. 292 00:31:08,090 --> 00:31:15,979 Chaldean churches, for example, here, a mosaic of Saint George slaying the dragon being defaced by ISIS, 293 00:31:15,980 --> 00:31:19,640 which in my opinion was the dragon getting to Iraq. 294 00:31:20,930 --> 00:31:30,530 So with all of these events, then this question was raised who said this, The very existence of Iraq as a distinct sovereign entity. 295 00:31:31,110 --> 00:31:32,160 Had become uncertain. 296 00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:40,790 And for those of you who kind of don't remember, there were certain junctures in Iraq's history where sentiments like this were expressed. 297 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:48,660 Now, who said this is actually the editor of Iraq's first anthology of science fiction stories? 298 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:54,000 You say, why was the editor saying this is and if you'll notice the name here, I'm writing on veracity. 299 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,740 I contributed to the science fiction, even though as a historian, why didn't I write a science fiction story? 300 00:31:59,130 --> 00:32:01,560 Because more or less, every single one of these writers, 301 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:09,540 we couldn't help but to write our projection of Iraq in 100 years being influenced by the rise of ISIS 302 00:32:10,620 --> 00:32:16,590 because of the rise of ISIS again raised that question How long would this terrorist statelet endure, 303 00:32:17,430 --> 00:32:23,130 and did it end its invasion more or less result in a de facto partition of Iraq? 304 00:32:24,030 --> 00:32:29,250 Where would the Kurdish parts of Iraq be on their way to independence anyway had the Iraqi state failed? 305 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:38,430 So now let's go to this element. Iraq plus 100 is a book that was written where we projected Iraq 100 years later. 306 00:32:38,670 --> 00:32:43,409 This lecture is called Iraq plus 20. What were you looking at over the last 20 years? 307 00:32:43,410 --> 00:32:51,990 What happened? So, again, let us look at not only in other words, what did this map represent? 308 00:32:52,740 --> 00:32:56,270 It's a reflection of the time. This is what I was trying to collect. 309 00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,930 Okay. We're basically somebody said his name was Roth. 310 00:32:59,940 --> 00:33:03,330 Peter is now a retired American lieutenant colonel. 311 00:33:03,510 --> 00:33:05,969 Apart from that pundit on Fox News. 312 00:33:05,970 --> 00:33:14,280 So if we talk about remember, this is the time when President Bush was President, Fox News was more or less the cheerleader of the Iraq war. 313 00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:22,860 Okay. We're basically he was saying not only let's let Iraq collapse, but let's bring down the collapse of the entire Middle East state system. 314 00:33:22,890 --> 00:33:27,719 Now, this was his most extreme manifestation of this kind of hubris. 315 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,530 But remember, there were two terms. 316 00:33:31,890 --> 00:33:40,890 Look at this one. In 2008 team, there were ideas that there were such entities that we could call an Iraqi Kurdistan, a Shia state. 317 00:33:40,950 --> 00:33:47,940 Okay. Now you might say, okay, these are more or less pundits extrapolating scenarios or this is you know, 318 00:33:48,150 --> 00:33:53,880 it's a science fiction editor who's wondering what the Iraqi state pursuit is. 319 00:33:54,180 --> 00:33:56,220 But then again, who wrote this article? 320 00:33:56,670 --> 00:34:02,610 And really it reflected and this is other I'm trying to give you, is kind of the zeitgeist of the time of the Iraqi insurgency. 321 00:34:02,850 --> 00:34:07,500 Unity through autonomy in Iraq was more or less a plan to make Iraq like Bosnia. 322 00:34:08,490 --> 00:34:14,640 Okay, you might say. So what is the New York Times editorial written by Joseph Biden? 323 00:34:15,290 --> 00:34:20,909 Okay. Back in 2006. You know, it's very interesting because look what he says here. 324 00:34:20,910 --> 00:34:24,980 It is increasingly clear that Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. 325 00:34:24,990 --> 00:34:29,010 Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor, 326 00:34:29,850 --> 00:34:35,700 which more or less would be President Obama and Biden as vice president. 327 00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:41,040 So let's look at this particular case and. 328 00:34:44,190 --> 00:34:48,240 Back in 2006, Biden was saying Europe should become like Bosnia. 329 00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:57,990 Now, if you're anyone familiar with the kind of the state of Bosnia as of 2023, it itself is a dysfunctional political ad hoc. 330 00:34:58,500 --> 00:35:05,250 But really, back then, the way if you have to remember that time was the fighting in Iraq was seen very much akin to the Bosnian civil war. 331 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,960 So really what this vision was was for both so-called soft partition. 332 00:35:14,380 --> 00:35:24,700 Now let's reflect. It's quite interesting that once it went to the his, you know, the defeat and passive problem, a lot to a successor. 333 00:35:26,110 --> 00:35:31,420 Let's look at what were some expectations on the eve of 2003 and what become the reality. 334 00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:36,940 By almost ten years into the Iraq war, the U.S. withdrew. 335 00:35:37,210 --> 00:35:42,910 And to everyone's surprise, did not get a military base, as was expected, not even in the Kurdistan Regional government. 336 00:35:44,500 --> 00:35:49,350 And not only that, a status of Forces agreement could not even be agreed upon. 337 00:35:49,350 --> 00:35:57,360 For the most part, it was a complete withdrawal, despite the expectations that even a residual force in Iraq would stay as of 2011. 338 00:35:57,690 --> 00:36:00,750 Simply that status of forces agreements could not be agreed upon. 339 00:36:01,380 --> 00:36:11,430 So this was not achieved. Second, despite the rhetoric of this war being a war for oil, again, another surprise emerged. 340 00:36:12,210 --> 00:36:16,140 Who did benefit? Who were the victors in Iraq's oil sector? 341 00:36:16,500 --> 00:36:21,090 Well, if you look at the groups that I highlighted, they weren't members of the coalition of the willing. 342 00:36:22,020 --> 00:36:30,120 It's the China National Oil company, Petronas of Malaysia and Total, the China National Petroleum there. 343 00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:38,430 And even a very at this time, it's hard to fathom that ExxonMobil could work with the Russian company Lukoil to extract Iraqi gas. 344 00:36:38,790 --> 00:36:44,999 What happened to everyone's surprise? Despite all the problems of, you know, that we that this was a war for oil, 345 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:56,400 the Iraqi government did launch a very transparent Iraqi oil bidding process at that time under Iraqi foreign oil Minister Hussein Shahristani. 346 00:36:56,850 --> 00:37:03,740 Where was it? Oil contracts were not awarded to a particular oil company based on its origin. 347 00:37:03,750 --> 00:37:10,680 They have the bid had to be submitted anonymously. And that's when you got this outcome where you see very few American companies. 348 00:37:10,980 --> 00:37:19,650 Why not? I mean, if you look at that coalition of the willing, it's really only that the Italian energy giant that got access to the field and again, 349 00:37:19,650 --> 00:37:28,590 because it submitted a very just reasonable proposal. Repsol, the Spanish government's energy oil network, 350 00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:33,900 which was part of the so-called coalition of the willing, did not get it, let's say, rewarded a contract. 351 00:37:35,340 --> 00:37:41,010 So I kind of I want to use this map now to kind of reflect on the region as we conclude. 352 00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:50,120 Remember back in 2003, the U.S. at that time was present in Afghanistan. 353 00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,529 The Taliban was almost defeated. The U.S. was in Iraq. 354 00:37:54,530 --> 00:38:00,410 And I remember the sentiment there particularly was that Syria and Iran would be next. 355 00:38:01,830 --> 00:38:08,370 With that momentum. It might be hard to imagine, but there was genuine calls in saying now that Iraq to succeed, that Iran is going to fall. 356 00:38:09,030 --> 00:38:09,960 Syria gone too far. 357 00:38:10,770 --> 00:38:20,399 In 2003, yes, there's a lot that Ayatollah Khomeini Khomeini was willing to negotiate with the US at that point over its nuclear program, 358 00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:27,150 over its support of proxy militias in the Middle East, over its ballistic missile program back in 2003. 359 00:38:27,570 --> 00:38:31,500 That offer was rebuffed back in 2003. Now, what is the irony? 360 00:38:31,710 --> 00:38:40,020 What has been the final obstacle of re-entering of the US re-entering the Iran deal? 361 00:38:40,470 --> 00:38:47,200 The US is saying offer us these things that it was more than willing to do back in 2003 years, 362 00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:55,060 that now if we look at this, what was the other ramification of the 2003 Iraq war? 363 00:38:55,080 --> 00:39:03,180 Iraq used to be known as the eastern flank of the middle of the Arab world As of 2003, with the demobilisation of the Iraqi military, 364 00:39:03,180 --> 00:39:14,980 The eastern flank collapsed Back in early 2006, The king of Jordan talked about a Shia arc going from Iran reaching the Mediterranean. 365 00:39:15,450 --> 00:39:23,730 It was not an inevitability, but it happened probably, I don't think, by design, but by circumstances well beyond Iran's control. 366 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,390 Remember, it was the US decision to disband the Iraqi military. 367 00:39:28,350 --> 00:39:36,570 But again, Iran was at that time willing to negotiate with the US when that offer was rebuffed and Syria felt threatened. 368 00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,890 Here you had two of Iraq's neighbours that had an incentive to support the insurgency. 369 00:39:42,240 --> 00:39:47,160 And like I said, to its surprise, the US did not maintain a strong military presence in Iraq. 370 00:39:48,690 --> 00:39:59,640 Okay, Syria again would eventually come undone, giving Iran the ability to project more influence not only into Iraq, into Syria, but. 371 00:40:00,730 --> 00:40:03,760 Despite that, it wasn't. 372 00:40:04,750 --> 00:40:08,470 People keep on saying that Iraq is dominated by Iran. 373 00:40:08,500 --> 00:40:12,700 It's too simplistic to say that, number one, on some level. 374 00:40:12,820 --> 00:40:21,250 Right. What did Iran also witness the revival of Najaf as a clerical institution? 375 00:40:21,250 --> 00:40:27,760 And that perhaps presents almost a greater threat to the Islamic Republic, 376 00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:32,980 at least to its legitimacy or its claim to being the sole leader of Shiite Islam. 377 00:40:34,060 --> 00:40:36,850 That to this very day and this is the picture I took up in Najaf. 378 00:40:37,420 --> 00:40:44,650 I just like that because it this not only has this institution come back to serve as kind of a rival to the Iranian networks and clone. 379 00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:48,770 I just find it so funny that there's a sign for pizza right before you enter. 380 00:40:48,910 --> 00:40:52,890 I guess that's the only reason I do that. You know what I said? 381 00:40:52,900 --> 00:40:59,970 Iran also wasn't able to get that by Hezbollah in Iraq. 382 00:40:59,980 --> 00:41:07,030 In fact, we have these are the various banners of a I don't know how to describe a constellation of Shia militias. 383 00:41:08,020 --> 00:41:15,330 And a good number of them, you know, get Iranians support. 384 00:41:15,340 --> 00:41:21,490 But this is also the other thing that despite the odds, what the Iraqis are buying was an Iranian U.S. proxy war. 385 00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:29,350 And this is a bit more in recent history, is that one of its leaders of one of these militias and an Iranian general, 386 00:41:29,350 --> 00:41:32,560 Kosmos Soleimani, was assassinated on Iraqi soil. 387 00:41:33,130 --> 00:41:39,970 If you remember, in January 2020, what was the most widely Google search term? 388 00:41:41,020 --> 00:41:47,160 How did World War three break out? Because remember, what was the anticipation that this assassination, 389 00:41:47,170 --> 00:41:52,420 like an assassination in Sarajevo, might set up a conflict that might spiral out of control? 390 00:41:53,200 --> 00:42:03,460 Okay. In other words, if we look at kind of the significance is somehow Iraq has both the U.S. and Iran in this proxy war. 391 00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,600 Okay. Yeah. In other words, Iraq surviving despite the odds. 392 00:42:09,590 --> 00:42:18,710 Iraq. Let's go back to prior to 2003, weathered the longest conventional war of the 20th century, the Iran-Iraq war, followed by one of the sharpest. 393 00:42:18,740 --> 00:42:27,860 The 1991 Gulf War, then the 1991 uprisings that swept through 15 of its 18 provinces and then a decade of sanctions. 394 00:42:29,300 --> 00:42:33,320 Then the 2003 war happened. So let's now kind of let me list what I've described. 395 00:42:33,740 --> 00:42:44,360 Ever witnessed an occupation from 2003 to 2011, the collapse of its national military in 2003, and insurgency from 2003 to 2008. 396 00:42:44,690 --> 00:42:48,200 A civil war from 2006 to 2008. 397 00:42:48,590 --> 00:42:53,900 And then the terrorist statelet of ISIS from 2014 to 2019. 398 00:42:53,930 --> 00:42:58,259 ISIS is more or less still in Iraq, primarily in the Diyala province. 399 00:42:58,260 --> 00:43:04,489 Is it still conducts terrorist attacks in Iraq, witness the genocide against the Yazidi population, 400 00:43:04,490 --> 00:43:10,400 ethnic cleansing of the Syrian Chaldeans, and I'll talk a bit later of the Mandaean population. 401 00:43:11,660 --> 00:43:15,350 It survived an aborted bid for Kurdish independence in 2017. 402 00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:24,020 It has endured and sustained protest movements, the constituents of which are Shia, by virtue of its geographic location. 403 00:43:24,020 --> 00:43:27,500 And then Shia left behind protesting against the Shia lead, 404 00:43:28,550 --> 00:43:36,170 a proxy war between the U.S. and Iran that more or less has I would say I would date back to 2003 and weathered a pandemic. 405 00:43:37,010 --> 00:43:42,890 And you also have to understand the not just depend a COVID pandemic, but a sterling mental health pandemic, 406 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:51,200 where the numbers I hear range from 1 to 3 to 1 to 5 Iraqis with heart having mental health issues, 407 00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:58,069 without the infrastructure to cope with this problem. And now having lost all of that, now I'm bringing in the climate. 408 00:43:58,070 --> 00:43:59,209 You see, You see? 409 00:43:59,210 --> 00:44:06,800 So despite the odds, I mean therefore mean if we took looking at the history of the Arab states system that has endured quite a lot of shocks, 410 00:44:07,190 --> 00:44:13,520 this is what I was just trying to get you to appreciate it. And how many you know, how much doubt whether they're okay now before it. 411 00:44:13,750 --> 00:44:17,899 I just finished with the climate strategy. Right. How did Iraq survive? 412 00:44:17,900 --> 00:44:19,400 So this is my assessment. 413 00:44:20,060 --> 00:44:28,340 It survived because the region, its neighbours, wanted Iraq to survive as a nation, albeit also an advantage of Iraq surviving, 414 00:44:28,340 --> 00:44:37,040 albeit weaker than it was under Saddam Hussein, whether it be Iran, Kuwait, definitely Saudi Arabia, Jordan, definitely as well as Syria. 415 00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:43,910 Syria lost this Baathist rival and Turkey to the extent where as long as the Kurds don't declare independence, 416 00:44:43,970 --> 00:44:47,450 all were factors that kept Iraq in tact from the region. 417 00:44:47,450 --> 00:44:58,700 Although the U.S. wanted it intact. Even with a 2017 vote, the U.S. was one of the most adamant opponents for such a unilateral move. 418 00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,710 But also the Iraqis. 419 00:45:04,830 --> 00:45:09,059 We tend to forget one of Iraq, in fact, Iraq's Shia population. 420 00:45:09,060 --> 00:45:14,890 It's hard to talk about it as a quote unquote, political faction, but those who happened to be Shia were finally now in power. 421 00:45:14,910 --> 00:45:23,460 They were, if you wanted, wanted the whole pie. And, of course, even there was a Kurdish incoherence that we have to admit kept Iraq intact. 422 00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:31,139 But the Kurdish bid for independence, that if you talk the let's say on the political level, there was always talk of Kurdish independence. 423 00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:35,400 And I teach Kurdish students every year in Prague and they all dream of independence, 424 00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:39,780 but even they did not want independence under these circumstances. 425 00:45:40,110 --> 00:45:47,370 The divide between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the KDP that you dominant parties is pronounced to this very day. 426 00:45:47,370 --> 00:45:49,700 And this is what I mean by Kurdish ethnic coherence. 427 00:45:50,760 --> 00:46:00,180 So what do we have that we do have a state that over 20 years has survived despite that moment when we 428 00:46:00,180 --> 00:46:07,230 really thought there would be a coup when Nuri al-Maliki was threatening to mobilise units loyal to him. 429 00:46:07,740 --> 00:46:14,220 After the chaos with ISIS from 2014 2015, the coup never materialised, even though there was an expectation of it. 430 00:46:14,670 --> 00:46:21,230 And finally, a Shia civil war that was talked about last summer still has yet to and fortunately did not materialise. 431 00:46:22,740 --> 00:46:30,710 So now kind of is the final conclusion. A good number of Iraq's problems were manmade outside of Iraq's borders. 432 00:46:30,720 --> 00:46:37,650 I would say all, you know, consequences of primarily the U.S. invasion combined with poor governance within Iraq. 433 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,510 And I think that's also going to be the problem with climate change. 434 00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:46,530 These are manmade problems. A good number are problems that are created beyond Iraq's borders. 435 00:46:46,530 --> 00:46:50,189 But then local governance is also going to exacerbate matters. 436 00:46:50,190 --> 00:46:54,180 So I'll just show you just kind of a couple of slides showing us the problem. 437 00:46:54,900 --> 00:46:59,100 63.5 degrees in Baghdad. Celsius, that is. 438 00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:06,400 What are the ramifications of temperatures like this? Now, when I'm showing you temperatures like this, you have to realise. 439 00:47:07,090 --> 00:47:11,139 Remember where you were during the 2019 summer heat wave. 440 00:47:11,140 --> 00:47:16,150 And it's easy to remember the last vacation you took without wearing a mask or having to worry about COVID vaccines. 441 00:47:16,150 --> 00:47:21,969 Right. And if you remember how hot that was, Iraq and Kuwait, that area there witnessed the hottest temperatures. 442 00:47:21,970 --> 00:47:28,060 And Earth says we were recording temperatures and the history of recording temperature as a climate. 443 00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:33,890 How is this going to affect Iraq? It's going to have a variety of ramifications. 444 00:47:33,910 --> 00:47:40,270 I just want to show you kind of from a gender perspective, I do argue that there's also there is a gender component here. 445 00:47:40,270 --> 00:47:44,040 Women are going to be disproportionately affected, 446 00:47:44,050 --> 00:47:49,030 because when I talk about gender in the Anthropocene, if we look at these beekeepers in Diyala, okay, 447 00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:54,910 or let's say cattle herders or fish or people who do fishing in the marshes, 448 00:47:55,300 --> 00:48:01,410 a good number of them are female head of households due to the wars with ISIS or the assassination of the head of households. 449 00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,400 We don't realise that most of the heads of families in these particular areas are women, right? 450 00:48:07,090 --> 00:48:12,010 Without water, you don't have the necessary flora and fauna for bees to pollinate. 451 00:48:12,820 --> 00:48:16,120 Okay. It's the same problem in the marshes. Okay. 452 00:48:16,570 --> 00:48:22,300 And again, if we look at just from a climate perspective, those oil fields I was talking about, 453 00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:28,089 Iraq will be disproportionately affected in terms of not only climate change, 454 00:48:28,090 --> 00:48:33,340 but then the toxic legacies not only of three wars, but the burning of hydrocarbons. 455 00:48:33,340 --> 00:48:37,550 So you remember Basra as a home to a large Afro Iraqi population. 456 00:48:37,570 --> 00:48:43,300 Now, look at this term I came up with climate Apartheid is not mine is the term developed by Desmond Tutu, 457 00:48:43,720 --> 00:48:47,049 where in this particular case I looked at how a climate change effect, 458 00:48:47,050 --> 00:48:52,860 let's say Basra's Afro Iraqi population compared to Columbia's African population, 459 00:48:52,870 --> 00:49:00,400 or what I argue is climate change is going to be concurrent with poverty and therefore the way it's going to be experienced is quite different. 460 00:49:01,390 --> 00:49:09,070 And then here we get to kind of Iraq and our imagination and the global imagination, the site of the Garden of Eden. 461 00:49:09,580 --> 00:49:14,080 And here, if you look at this particular community, the Mandaeans are facing few threats. 462 00:49:14,110 --> 00:49:24,250 Not only were they threatened by various militias who were displacing them from the south of Iraq, but this is a kind of an interesting faith, 463 00:49:24,310 --> 00:49:34,330 a community that claims a kind of neo gnostic faith where they revered John the Baptist and thus baptism is integral to their faith. 464 00:49:34,510 --> 00:49:42,790 But they're just like the Yazidis. The Mandaeans are a community whose faith is strictly and solely connected to the land where they come from. 465 00:49:42,950 --> 00:49:47,019 Okay. And this is what I mean by the loss of Iraq's heterogeneity with the Yazidis. 466 00:49:47,020 --> 00:49:48,309 It was as a result of ISIS. 467 00:49:48,310 --> 00:49:54,880 In the case of the Mandaeans, it's the combination of, let's look around, hotter temperatures are leading to more evaporation. 468 00:49:55,630 --> 00:50:00,100 The damming of the rivers in Turkey are leading to less flow of water coming down. 469 00:50:00,490 --> 00:50:06,400 And then last night, remember, forget the act of political ecology committed under Saddam Hussein, the draining of the marshes. 470 00:50:07,390 --> 00:50:16,090 The marshes were restored, but in that intervening time, there was irreparable damage that had started to cause more intense sandstorms. 471 00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,410 Just so I can show you, this is a picture of Basra. And if you can't see it exactly. 472 00:50:21,850 --> 00:50:25,330 Oh, this I'll show you this just to kind of reflect on my own personal trip. 473 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:34,330 This is a sandstorm in Columbia. It's 3 p.m. and this is what we're seeing because Dubai, Kuwait, the foliage experiences sandstorm. 474 00:50:34,330 --> 00:50:38,889 When I say in Iraq is something that is quite unusual even for my mom and father. 475 00:50:38,890 --> 00:50:42,700 They have never witnessed this kind of intensity. So that's the shrine of call home here. 476 00:50:43,810 --> 00:50:48,370 And then this is not rain. They're just particles of hard sand droplets. 477 00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:52,990 Just to show you and then literally a minute later, it's all clear. 478 00:50:54,220 --> 00:50:56,350 And that's what I'm saying, it's literally 3 p.m. 479 00:50:56,350 --> 00:51:01,780 But these are kind of anomalous sandstorms where now it's even providing kind of a health hazard in terms of people 480 00:51:01,780 --> 00:51:09,610 now being hospitalised because the intensity and frequency is a lot more so as to conclude Now I mean to make, 481 00:51:10,030 --> 00:51:17,829 you know, Iraq in terms of kind of the story we've told of civilisation and environmental story, 482 00:51:17,830 --> 00:51:21,190 I believe from them that our mesto has these problems with civilisation. 483 00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,940 For him it's, it's kind of, it's a subjective term, but let's just go with it. 484 00:51:25,090 --> 00:51:30,249 Okay. Iraq is of course, considered in the story of modern civilisation, 485 00:51:30,250 --> 00:51:38,320 the birthplace of not only civilisation, but the site of many of the good parts of the Bible itself. 486 00:51:40,420 --> 00:51:43,950 And yes, what what are we witnessing in Iraq? 487 00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:50,110 If civilisation began here and set us on a trajectory to modern civilisation? 488 00:51:50,140 --> 00:51:59,310 Now, this is the question then will there also be in Iraq where modern civilisation first begins to unravel due to these kind of fluctuations? 489 00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,130 These. Other things to think about now. I don't want to end on such a pessimistic note. 490 00:52:03,220 --> 00:52:08,080 Right. Remember Johnson, Melissa, who was kidnapped in February, he was eventually released. 491 00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:12,010 We don't know. Still, he hasn't told us who kidnapped him or how he was released. 492 00:52:12,430 --> 00:52:16,209 There is no cause for optimism. And it's finally this. 493 00:52:16,210 --> 00:52:18,550 And it relates to where I'm giving my presentation. 494 00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:33,579 Back in the 1930s, and the Iraqi politician named Mohammed Hadebe had a vision of a bi national Iraq and Iraq, where the Kurds were given autonomy, 495 00:52:33,580 --> 00:52:42,940 but also a stake in the system, a state where Iraq's Sunnis and Shias could cooperate in the name of modernisation and development. 496 00:52:42,970 --> 00:52:47,290 Right. That was Mohammed Hadid's vision in the 1930. 497 00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:55,390 And for all of you who don't know it, we have the legacy of his daughters work in this building that she designed right here. 498 00:52:56,590 --> 00:52:59,889 And so this is where I conclude for some notes of optimism. 499 00:52:59,890 --> 00:53:02,469 The last 20 years have been difficult, 500 00:53:02,470 --> 00:53:12,730 but we also have to acknowledge that this is also an opportunity to for Mohammed Hadi's vision is manifesting itself. 501 00:53:13,930 --> 00:53:20,540 And on that kind of note, there is some room for optimism in the next 20 years. 502 00:53:20,590 --> 00:53:24,610 Thank you so much. Oh, and just some further reading if you want. 503 00:53:24,610 --> 00:53:27,790 I wrote this for International Women's Day on Wednesday. 504 00:53:27,850 --> 00:53:32,799 This article talking about the problem of honour killings in Iraq deserves its own lecture. 505 00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:42,180 I didn't do it justice. And then finally, if you want to know more about the environment, a excellent lecture on the Middle East Centre, 506 00:53:42,180 --> 00:53:46,209 a series of podcasts which I believe you check with this political ecology. 507 00:53:46,210 --> 00:53:54,790 Tell us about the environment. Yeah, this was also if you want to learn about Iraq's environmental problems by a proper political ecologist, 508 00:53:55,330 --> 00:54:01,150 and yes, if you want to keep in touch or if we have questions in the future that weren't articulated during the Q&A. 509 00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:02,020 Thank you.